Thursday, June 28, 2007

Speaking of Slums

The United Nations jabbed its big, multinational finger in the eye of the British Columbia and Vancouver city governments by shining a spotlight on Van's infamous slum, the "Downtown Eastside."

"It's one of the worst areas of urban blight that I've ever seen and I've travelled all over the world," said Patricia Leidl, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Population Fund.

The mayor's office defended Vancouver by changing the subject to something, anything else - such as how nice the other neighbourhoods are. Ms. Leidl replied that that's precisely her point.

They just don't get it. Of course while we're shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to host the 2010 Winter Olympics while griping that we can't afford healthcare costs, sometimes a few thousand homeless junkies just get overlooked.

3 comments:

So why aren't the BC liberals doing anything about this? Or your mayor? It sounds like the same old story that happened federally for the past 10 years or so. Reduce deficit, tax cuts, and cut transfers to provinces, and what was that campaign 2000 on child poverty about. I guess all those Canadian children living in poverty were easily overlooked as liberals - again - just talked the walk.

Jan, the first snag is BC "Liberal" which ain't hardly liberal at all. Mike Harris would be comfortable as a BC Liberal. What you're actually talking about is British Columbia's ever-so conservative party, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

jan, you truly are a hyperpartisan liberal-basher. ann coulter would be proud. too bad you have nothing of substance to say about homlessness in vancouver and the inhumane living donditions in the DES...just: "liberals evil!". way to go, your petty tribalism is an impediment to progressivism.